The Problem With Exponential Innovation: People

"Exponential emerging technological changes run counter-intuitive to the way our linear brains make projections about change, and so we don't realize how fast the future is coming." The concept of exponential technologies has been popularized by organizations like Singularity University, which defines it as technologies where the power and/or speed doubles each year, and/or the cost drops by half. One of the big challenges with exponential technology change in business is that – by definition – it starts off slow. In the early days, pilot projects can look like they're failing compared to the incremental improvements of more established approaches. The result is that the projects look like a bad deal, resulting in organizations taking too long to invest – until it's too late to catch up with those who adopted early.